Fences

2016

Often overpowered by Washington's forceful turn, Fences struggles with a bad case of thematic redundancy. We get it, "the world is changing and you can't even see it." The film also fails to define a cinematic rhythm separate from Wilson's doozy of a script. Washington's direction shows little visual ingenuity and at times feels stilted.

It goes without saying that the actors in “Fences,” among them Washington and Viola Davis, are some of the most talented and skillful in the business. But Washington’s filming of the play, despite his evident deep commitment to it, is far less imaginative and less original than Wilson’s creation of the play; the performances resemble theatrical ones and spurn the distinctive exhilarations of movie acting.

Washington’s performance effortlessly navigates the character’s complexities, delusions, and contradictions, partnered with a slow-churning mix of willpower and vulnerability that Davis brings to her role. But as a director, he is at as his best when he’s at his stodgiest... He knows acting, and knows how to frame actors in conversation, which is a rarer skill than it should be. But with anything abstract, his direction turns clumsy and overemphatic.

Washington's non-direction of the play is so quaint that it nearly does a loop-de-loop into the realm of the avant-garde; the rarefied, sentimentalized, polished-looking 1950s-era Pittsburgh of the film suggests nothing more than a series of theatrical backdrops. This studied quaintness is evocative in fits and starts.

Really hammers home the fundamental difference between theater and cinema, showing that the difficulty in translation is more than just a matter of "staginess." Washington uses the camera expressively, in an appropriately subdued way; every shot and cut has been carefully thought out, accentuating the performances while giving full weight to the environment surrounding them.

It's hard to feel ill will towards a movie that gives a showcase to Davis in her prime... And then of course there's Washington, who gives his line readings real cadence and swing, the very aspects that are absent from the film itself. His Troy enjoys himself immensely in spinning his yarns – one hopes that Denzel Washington, the director, will someday evince the same sense of pleasure in his filmmaking.

The movie seems very much like what people have said about it: good, but stagey (or stagey, but good) ... with some strong performances... The limitations of FENCES, while palpable, are minor in the big scheme of things, however, and in some real sense this is a movie that conveys some actual feelings about life (and things which cut to the bone). Nothing to sneeze at.

Denzel Washington directs and stars in this film adaptation of August Wilson’s play, opening it up to real locations in Pittsburgh without marring its essential qualities as a stage drama. His performance and direction are generous and sensitive, allowing plenty of room for the actors in smaller parts (Mykelti Williamson, Russell Hornsby) to dig into their characters.

There is a fluidity of movement within space that really wouldn't be possible on the stage -- the slight exterior pivots, for example, that tilt our perpective away from the Gibralter-like solidity of the house, down the road to follow Gabriel (Williamson) as he traipses away, or Troy (Washington) as he leaves to go be with his mistress. These departures become axial, wrenching in their way. And of course they implicitly argue for the fence that Rose (Davis) wants around the family compound.

Washington’s choice to film in rectangular cinemascope may seem to make it more “cinematic,” but it also allows more bodies onscreen at once... He keeps shot-reverse shots to a minimum, which helps preserve the rhythm of the words being volleyed. In fact, it would be a shame to close your eyes and focus on the language. You’d miss the simple way Washington is able to bring what’s great about Wilson to a medium that, in hands as capable as these, does him just right.

Decades in the making, Denzel Washington's self-directed adaptation of August Wilson's play features one of his best lead performances, plus sterling work from a backup cast of heavy-hitting characters that includes Viola Davis. But what's most startling and impressive is the direction: this might be the best example in movie history of a filmed play that never for a second pretends that it's not a play, yet embraces the material's "play-ness" in a gloriously cinematic way.